Author
Topic: Star-Light Legacy (Read 352 times)

Tristan padded nervously up the hill, grasses rimed with frost. It was early morning, far too early morning for him. His joints protested, but with practiced eased, he quieted them to ascend the hills peak. Selune was starting to wane, though she shon bright enough that pale light fell over the valley that greeted him as he reached the top. Down the slope three robed figures standing in a triangle. Finally, he thought, though quickly, the lessons of the last seven years had summoned a reservoir of patience in him. For those seven years, three months and two days, Tristan had been cloistered away within the Cynosure of Mysteries. A modest yet vital establishment devoted to the Lady Mystra. Tonight, however, had been different to sleeping and reading as usual. He had received summons via a Sending spell to exit the city two hours after midnight and to travel east for twenty minutes along the main road. Curious motes of starlight guided him, a strange sympathetic magic that faded as he approached, only to light up a few meters away. A trail of starlight, he thought. Faith command him to follow it, but trepidation allowed no room for enthusiasm beyond dedication.

Gingerly, his footfalls carried him down the slope to perch on the edge of triad. If the chilly pre-dawn wind bothered him, Tristan offered no complaint. It was natural for weather to be cold this time of year, the first snows had yet to fall, and east of Silverymoon was no exception. The grand city lay behind him, pale and pearlesque in Selune's radiance. At 34 years of age, Tristan had been considered a late bloomer for those seeking the Ways of the Weave. But after petitioning the attending priests many times, he was finally tested before his 27th birthday. He never knew what the results of those tests were. Some were strange, priests or attendees watching the way he poured water through a trough with holes along it, rendering the task useless. Another attendee sitting and watching him, while commanding him to do nothing but watch back. Some tests were more practical, such as peeling 100 potatoes before the midday sun. Or demonstrate penmanship with scrolls of vellum. They must have seen something in him, otherwise he wouldn't have been asked to stay and learn from the wizards and priests in service to the Lady of Magic.

But now, all of this seemed to be culminating into ... something. Dread washed over him in a flustering anxiety attack. He stamped it down out of force of will. Whatever he faced tonight, he would be authentic and open to the wishes of those who served Her. He bowed before his audience, acutely aware of the brief few seconds he would have spent reflecting and mulling things over. The man in the middle spoke."Acolyte Tristan. It is on this morning, the 7th of Nightal, that the Lady of Mysteries has bade us to initiate you into the ways of holy communion with the Mother of all Magic." His voice was a resonant baritone, filled with reverence and command. Tristan recognised him as Dweomerkeeper Hassan - one of his mentors, one he had shared many philosophically gruelling and rigorous debates with over the nature of magic and it's place in the Realms. Given the timbre of his voice, however, there would be no platitudes or concessions afforded for his learner status."I am ready, masters." He mustered a semblance of confidence, yet made sure his voice did not carry the overtones of 'too confident'. "You are not." A female voice spoke to his side. Immediately, he puzzled on the origins of this voice, it was not one he had heard before. Immediately, pale blue eyes darted to the third figure on the other side. The robes trimmed with white and carrying symbols of Mystra, her third incarnation, lay sewn on the front, and a deep impressive hood obscured any hope of facial features. "But you will be..." She added with hint of affection. "Now, stand before us, and witness Her Glory."

Tristan did as he was bid and braced himself mentally, yet all that would become unhinged as the three robed figures began to chant in a blend of languages. He recognised dwarven, essence of foundation, before they fluidly moved into draconic, this was where he lost them, from draconic to a stranger language, one that danced and maneuvered through his hearing like a zephyr through leaves. The harmonics of their chant started to crescendo, a rising torrent of auditory exaltation that sent goosebumps across his body, and the hairs upon his neck stood up. Magic! The preliminary force of magic was beginning to manifest around him, through him. Like a warmth that spread over his skull and down his spine, his senses melted before the supernatural presence, and his eyes closed over, surrendering. Where visual senses were not needed, his ears were far more finely tuned. With a bards tonal ear, he felt more than heard the point where the fluidic language of elven ascended to the higher octaves of Celestial. Truly exalted, whatever spell these three were Weaving was intended to be experiential more than not. Overcome with raw emotion, Tristan refused to balk when tears streamed from his face, a cold wind blew around him, and a sensation of floating overtook him. The three casters began to sound more distant, truly, he thought, that his experience must overwhelm his pithy mortal ears.

A minute passed, his limbs felt like cotton, and he heard a voice in his ear. "Worry not, for one hour, the Goddess will keep you from falling, welcome." His eyes peeled open, uncertain at first, as he viewed a landscape awash in pale light. It took only a few seconds for him to realise that he was some fifty feet in the air, an ethereal, silvery aura radiating around his shoulders, back and down his legs to his feet. Needless to say, Tristan gasped in abject terror, which quickly yielded to wonder and amazement. An exhilarated laugh and experimental movement found him able to control the direction of his flight. Clumsy at first, the man quickly adapted as he understood what was happening. The Ritual of Starflight, thought to be little more than a rumour and fanciful tale, was in deed true. And on this night, Tristan, blessed and welcomed by the Goddess into the ranks of her true Faithful, laughed and sang Her praises into the star-studded night sky of northern Faerun.

After the first ten minutes of soaring, and negotiating the inevitable random bug into ones mouth, Tristan's euphoria failed to diminish. He circled overhead, before banking hard to hover above the slowly rising three masters. A smile painted on his face, also inevitable. "This is amazing.." He spoke dumbly, clearly dwarfed in ego by the experience."A true blessing." An elderly man spoke, as the three hovered at level to him. Nearby, a cloud began to roll in, a storm that had threatened them in the previous afternoon from the coast was coming in. With it, carried the acrid tinge of seawater. "But one that will have to be conducted temporarily, that storm is..." He left the sentence unspoken, as beady brown eyes narrowed toward the incoming cloud. It was moving quickly, quicker than a cloud might, and more alarmingly, against the wind.

Tristan turned to confront the incoming could, immediately sensing that something about it moved oddly. Instinct forced him to float backwards, to be in greater proximity to the three masters. Senses trained to the supernatural peeled in awakened dread. This vapour held intention. The three robed figures moved to protect their new initiate, and intonations of spellcraft filled the air. Chimed in unison, a peel of harmonic resonance sheered the air in front of them, as spells both arcane and divine rose protective wards from the air itself. A mage's armour, and a shield hewn from faith itself adorned the three masters like mantles over shoulders, translucent and warded. Tristan began his own protection ward, a simple one, near orison in power. A simple ward to shield the mind from evil forces. Still the cloud rolled forward. Intent, malevolent in an unerring mission. Hassan gripped a holy symbol, a disc around his necklace of Mystra. He spoke in a chant."Mother of All Magic, your servants ask for aid from this unknown force!" He petitioned, his right hand cupping the symbol; his left raised in welcome to the heavens above them. A moment passed, and nothing. That their Goddess ignored their plea for aid was unthinkable, and also untrue, as a distance peel of thunder slowly came into hearing. Overheard, a shoot star passed the length of the sky, which all four failed to ignore in wonder. As their eyes turned to face the cloud that slowly clawed the air toward them, they became aware of a fifth person. A woman in long black hair, studded with a diamond spray of stars. She radiated power by mere presence. She wore robes of deep blue, and fabric ethereally whipped around her form. Ribbons and folds of her robes moved with a prehensile yet defensive posturing. She was lined by a power that glowed impressively against the cold night. Mystra herself it seems, or at least her avatar stood to face the oncoming wave of cloud with a single sphere of white-blue magic in her palm. And she arrived with the all the presence of a silenced thunderclap.

Now, dear readers, as one might wonder, what could possibly cause one of the most powerful and influential deity of the Realms to directly manifest, under the principle of Plural of Self, an avatar to appear before the four faithful? The answer was lost upon the four as the Goddess spoke, her voice sliced through the buffeting wind like the proverbial hot knife through butter."No. I will not allow you to take my faithful. My patriarchs are under my protection." Needless to say the four faithful floated in abject wonder as they watched. The cloud began to halt, gathering and pooling in places to assess the being that stood before them. It searched, swarmed and broiled in place, some three miles wide. The Goddess' mote of power scintillated the moment the cloud darted a single tendril like an arm for the troupe, it's intended targets.

Like a bolt from the heavens, indeed, as this was, Mystra's star left her palm without a word. The four, stunned to subservience witnessed the act with a perfect blend of fear and wonder. The bolt of light struck into the cloud, receding into it's depths like lightning behind thunderclouds. A deep, bass note thundered within, and light expanded outward through the dreaded miasma. The Goddess frowned for but an instant, before the tendril snaked it's way around her with disarming speeds. Tristan raised his hands in defense. Futility matched him. Mystra wordless threw power to shield her Faithful. A sphere of force that isolated the four from time and space. Otiluke's Resilent Sphere, Tristan thought. Though they could not affect the outside of the sphere, the outside could not affect them. The Mist swarmed the sphere, pouring over the surface, searching for a weakness in the Goddess' Magic. The Mother of All Magic drifted toward the tendril, by now, her faithful would not be able to see her, but they might hear. "Know this; I will not allow-..". What might've indeed been a caustic and triumphant speech was cut short by a crack of lightning through a cloudless, starry sky above her. "No! This cannot be allowed to happen still! I beg you!" The four within the sphere never saw, nor never heard the moment a force greater than Hers dismissed her protective sphere. She reacted within an instant, ferrying the three masters away with a Teleport Other spell at will. Tristan saw nothing beyond a grey wall of Mist roll over him and his senses blackend.

The Mists recoiled, laughter stung the Goddess, though no mortal ears heard it. Forbidden by powers beyond hers, and denied by a Pact sewn within the fabric of the existence of her divine status, Mystra shrieked in grief."YOU ARE DENIED, WEAVE-HAG." were the only words she heard from a receding, faintly luminescent and now dissipating Mists of Ravenloft.

(All images do not belong to me, and any artist may contact me to remove them. This is purely concept art only, and intended for entertainment only.)